Archaeological Conference

Washington College anthropology and archaeology students and faculty ventured to Ocean City for the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference (MAAC) in Ocean City to attend paper presentations and participate in discussion groups and special workshops.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Bill Schindler shows students in his Experimental Archaeology class not only how to look for clues from archaeological evidence, but has them participate in making tools, processing food, and even butchering a deer to get hands on experience in the how-to of primitive technology. The experience of producing a tool from scratch helps archaeologists to better interpret the artifacts they find, as an understanding of how a tool is made leads to an understanding of what kind of archaeological evidence it may leave behind.

Graduates of the 2011 Chesapeake Semester successfully presented at the 72nd Annual Conference of the Society for Applied Anthropology in Baltimore on “Bays, Boundaries, and Borders.” In attendance were Ashley Burdette, Zach Hall, Joseph Hemphill, Brendyn Meisinger, Zoe Newell, Kelly Kunsch, Rettie Duke, and Jeffery Sullivan.Each of the eight presentations was inspired by group final projects completed last fall. At the start of the fall’s Chesapeake Semester, students were divided into two groups addressing separate “umbrella” topics. Working within their respective groups they developed focus and individual research tracks supporting their assigned group topic. The first group developed research around the connection between “waterscapes and landscapes.” The second group tackled “Edges,” exploring the notion that the edge is the farthest point from the center.